I hope mine get run into the ground earning for me. Totally worthless works for me. Then they did their job.

LTG : )

If you're worried about what your pins are worth, you can't play them enough.

I have a buddy who dropped some serious bread on a crazy resto MM back before the remakes. It was great looking but everyone was afraid to play it, and as such when you did put a ball through it it was a crappy player.

Meanwhile, we played the paint off his TRON LE, lol. Who knew??

Player all the way. I expect to lose money on my games but I am going to get the full enjoyment out of them.

My thought is I need to play the game at least once for every dollar it cost me.

I got a long way to go on a couple of them.

If a game leaves (doesn't happen frequently) you can be damn sure I played it to death beforehand. Player all the way here. Then when I sell, most likely it will go to a friend for a good price. That means I lose money. Haha

People who "invest" in pinball

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As long as my playing depreciates them at the same rate as they're appreciating I'm happy.

A fool? As has been documented on Pinside in the past, the return on "investing" in pinball machines as a collectible is iffy at best, and is indisputably worse than putting your money into a mutual fund. So if you're really looking for an investment to grow your money, look elsewhere.

If you love playing pinball, enjoy the fact that at least for now, if you pay sane prices for used games, you'll probably be able to sell them for roughly what you paid, give or take a few hundred. And be prepared that the pinball market is like other collectibles markets and may change some day, leaving all of your pins worth only a fraction of what you paid. And if that idea is overly alarming to you, you probably have too much of your money "invested" in this hobby!

I feel my investment comes back in the number of games that get played. Actually I have never sold a game so I probably don’t count.

I never realised they had to be mutually exclusive ideologies to begin with.

If I hadn't "invested" in a bunch of B and C list pins as part of my first foray into container importing a few years ago and onsold them for a reasonable profit then I wouldn't have able to justify the next container load of B and A list titles and so on.

If I hadn't "invested" into restoring and selling a couple of those A list titles then I wouldn't have been able to justify paying aftermarket pricing on an NIB BBB.

Everyone assumes that there has to be some negative connotation surrounding the term investing but sometimes there is a positive.

I'm sure by "investor" the OP was thinking "speculator" which in most hobbies is considered mighty uncouth.

And no, they can absolutely go hand in hand. I know some great players who are concerned with the value of their games for sure.

I've been lucky and have made a BIG profit on every game I've ever owned. I'm on my 4th Scared Stiff! The first one I bought for $800! The second for $2,800. Tron owners have made a few bucks.
But, like I said, I've been lucky! (hope it continues)

I have been more interested in playing and have also benefited from a general uptick in pricing over the years.

There have been more than a few games that I didnt enjoy playing (congo for one) that I could have bought but passed on years ago for what would be considered a steal with todays pricing.

Player. I wouldn't be overly upset losing upwards of $1k on a new game as I try to make it up in other areas. I drive a 7 year old paid off hybrid car so I can keep justifying NIB pins, lol. I can afford a new car but rather save and put the money towards hobbies like pinball. The $1k I lost on a new game purchase is two $500 car payments.

I buy to play, but I probably wouldn't buy an $8000 machine if I wasn't reasonably sure I would get at least $6000 for it if I decided to sell it. I don't play enough to have it depreciate much more than that. That only matters if I need to sell it though. A high end pin should always be worth a high end pin in the barter market.

I'm a player... but I do like the fact that the hobby often pays for itself, games I bought 8 or 10 years ago are worth 2 or 3 times what I bought them for and if I'm ever in a financial crunch, I have tens of thousands of equity in my games. I also really like finding deals and projects and fixing them up, that part of the hobby has always been fun for me, putting the sweat equity into my games. I also don't buy new in box games, I shop around, wait for deals, do the work... the result is I don't think I've ever lost money on a pin.

You can be all of the above. If you buy them right, fix them, play the shit out of them, then clean em up.and sell em.

Dibs on your games when ready to sell. I'll give ya 1k for the pair.

I collect and play for enjoyment only. If prices go up on a title,
I see that as a bonus but it doesn't matter cause I'm a hoarder and keep machines I purchase for good. Having been in this hobby for almost 25 years I have seen some amazing price increases.Sadly, The days of $3500 NIB monster bash and near mint condition $1800 TZ are long gone!!!!

You know where to find me. Haha

Every cent I put into pinball is an assumed loss in my little world. I buy to play. Hope they don't lose value, but if they do it's a risk I'm aware of!

Hell, I've never even considered getting what I put in them. I've got close to or more in them than I paid for them.

You have to count pinball machines as "spent dollars." They are NOT, in any way, an investment. If you get some $$ back then great but you should never ever count on it. If you are looking at a pinball machine as an investment then you should never play it - in fact and better yet --> keep it strapped on the pallet unopened and in a climate controlled environment and then do a little dance to appease the pinside gods so that the game winds up as a top 10 game on pinside ratings.

ps- If you buy Williams 90s games, you won't lose money on them. It's more of a crap shoot on new games.

Well I sure hope they weren't lying to me.

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Mmm, a full plate of profits. I'm getting hungry just thinking about it.

And play appeal..

Who says you can't have your cake and eat it too..

How about both? I bought them to play and enjoy...but I bought most of my games before 2010, so if I ever do sell them, I absolutely expect to get more than I paid for them.

You expect that now, based on market changes over the last ten years. But did you expect it in 2008 or whenever you bought the games? I think that would be the difference between essentially a happy accident (some years down the line, your hobby turns out to be neutral or even positive financially) vs. investment or speculation (buying pinball machines with an expectation and at least partial purpose of turning a profit).

I don't turn over my games often, so clearly I'm buying them for my enjoyment....however, it was initially scary to get into such an expensive hobby....what got me over that hump was the knowledge that there's no way I can really lose anything if I ever had an emergency and had to "get out". I pretty much never paid "market value" for my games, since I was often seeking out Craigslist bargains from non-hobbyists and fixing up the games myself. Finding bargains was fun...and was happening NON-STOP back then...that's just how it was.

I don't consider myself a "pinvestor" but at the same time I always "bought smart" just in case...I'm sure this is the case for many pinball hobbyists, falling into the "a little of both" category.

I fully expect to buy my next machine at an inflated price only to see the bubble burst.

I'm ok with that. It's therapy playing.

We spend stupid money on phones every 3 years,,,,, not because we want to, but because they are designed to be "incompatible " very quickly. At least I know my pinball machine made it a few decades and i have the ability to replace parts. You can't even replace the friggin' battery on a phone anymore!

If i only consider the most recent purchases in the past couple years. (LOTR, MET, TAF and Bad Cats) I really don't care one way or the other if Lose money or not. I bought them to play. When I sell them it's what ever the market is at the time. On the other hand I've bought many projects just to repair and sell. On these I do expect to make a profit on them.

There's no bubble, but as inventory dwindles from "cheaper" sources (true auctions, randos selling games on CL), most sales will be from fellow collectors who know the value of what they have. I think if you buy from hobby friends, you'll be OK...if you buy mega-restored games or from retailers, yeah - you're gonna overpay and maybe not recoup when selling. Also NIB games...never expect your NIB purchase to go up in value. Only time & reputation can make that happen.

Bought for the enjoyment. If I get more when it comes time to sell...great, if I don't...oh well, had fun.

Once again, you’re a voice of reason.

Sadly, the days of buying reasonably are long gone. Even though I had a taste of the reasonable days,I still consider every penny spent lost. This market could EASILY turn south.

I expect them to hold their value reasonably well but I don't expect to make money off of them. That "loss" is ok because of the enjoyment they brought me and the people I love.

I invest in real estate, businesses and the stock market; not pinball.

Only thing that goes south is the NIB market, which would just bring us back to "normal". When I started collecting, it was absolutely normal to find used newer games for a fraction of the NIB price...Sopranos for $1600, South Park for $1200, Austin Powers for $1800, etc. They lost a lot from their $3500 NIB price. However, games that were long out of production, finite, and gained great reputations - those rose in value. I've said this for years - the only thing that makes it all go south or the bubble pop would be for EVERYONE who owns pins to simultaneously liquidate...I don't see that happening. So - supply and demand will still rule the market. The classics are still the classics and won't stop being loved. Fake-collectibles like LE's? They'll only go up in value if they're mindblowingly awesome and for some reason don't sell well...only to be discovered when it's "too late". Not that "too late" means anything anymore with remakes and vaults and shit....but that's another story.

When was the other time?